At the CERN lab, in Geneva, physicists shoot protons and antiprotons at each other so that they collide head-on. The colliding particles usually fragment one another and in the process release a variety of subatomic debris and energy. Large arrays of detectors surrounding the collision site record the particles as they streak away. Usually the escaping particles can be easily identified; but in 1983 nine strange events were recorded, and more have occurred in 1984. Something both invisible and inexplicable carried off large amounts of energy during these "strange" events. Physicist Carlos Rubbia, of CERN and Harvard, said:

"There is no sensible way to explain the missing energy by known particles."

Some theorists believe that these anomalous events will be explained only by invoking what is termed "supersymmetry" theory. Supersymmetry predicts that twice as many particles as those known today must exist. Already, physicists are rushing to name the new, though unverified particles. The symmetric partner of the "quarks" will be the "squarks"; the "photon" will be paired with the "photino"; there will be the "selectron" for the "electron"; and so on.

Immanuel Velikovsky (1895-1979) was a controversial author of several books suggesting a radical interpretation of history. In his best-selling book, Worlds in Collision (1950), he argues that the Earth and other planets, had been subject to cosmic catastrophes in historical times, that had been recorded in the oral traditions, myths and legends of the peoples of the world. His 1956 book Earth in Upheaval describes geological evidence that he says supports the idea of global catastrophes in prehistorical and historical times.

In Ages in Chaos (1952), Velikovsky writes of parallels he has found between biblical and Egyptian history from the Exodus to the early Divided Monarchy era, that initiates a debate on the chronologies of ancient history, and three more books, Oedipus and Akhnaton (1960), Peoples of the Sea (1977), and Ramses II and His Time (1978).

Published posthumously, in Mankind in Amnesia (1982) Velikovsky draws on his training as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst to propose his theory of collective amnesia to explains the inability of people to look at the overwhelming evidence of global catastrophes.